


But all kinds of people won't care for your heart

by sandyk



Series: worth it [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU of civil war, Gen, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter Parker is a Genius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Peter was raised a Stark and he's Spider-man and his father just got home from Siberia barely alive. Captain America, though, he's just fine. Peter isn't sure how he feels about that.(helps to have read the previous installments of the series.)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: worth it [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750705
Comments: 6
Kudos: 163
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	But all kinds of people won't care for your heart

**Author's Note:**

> not mine, no profit garnered. title from lilly hiatt's all kinds of people. Thanks A!! It never stops annoying me that they wrote Peter having an algebra test in Civil War - come on! He's a genius with an unreal IQ taking algebra as a freshman in high school - I am not a genius with an unreal IQ and I took Algebra in seventh grade (two years earlier). So I changed it, sometimes canon just has to be wrong, lol.

Somehow when they come home from Siberia, Steve is fine with a few bruises and Tony is being hurriedly ushered into the medbay. Peter was patrolling when Karen told him, she heard from FRIDAY, and now he's standing by the door, his mask in his hands. Steve says, "It's complicated, Peter."

"Tell me anyway," he says. He's fucking livid. He's been angry since this whole stupid thing started and he knows he's a special case but he wishes people would put his father first for fucking once. He wishes Steve would.

"It was a set up. The man who lured us there, he unleashed one super soldier and he managed to trigger Bucky, to make him lose his mind. It was a really tough fight," Steve says.

Peter says, "But you're basically fine, Bucky is in Wakanda getting unbrainwashed and my dad is the one in the coma."

Steve just looks down, like his guilt makes up for anything. 

Dr. Cho says Peter can come in, so he does. Tony looks horrible. Peter's never seen him look this bad, never. He wonders if it's because he's old enough to be in there and when he was younger, they waited before Peter could see him. He wishes he was ten again. Tony has a ventilator on and one of his arms is elevated with casts and pins. There's a blanket covering his body but Peter can see the puffed places where there's so many bandages. 

Peter takes Tony's hand, the non-elevated one. He says, "Hey, Dad." He says it over and over again until he's not crying and he doesn't sound like some broken baby. He kinda hopes the repetition will annoy his dad enough to wake up. Peter used to do that when he was six or seven. 

He squeezes Tony's hand. He says, "Maybe I could read to you. Except you hate books on tape. I can narrate TV for you. Have you ever watched Frasier? May is weirdly into Frasier. It's wack, dude." He puts on an exaggerated swagger for that last phrase. "Oh, we should watch 30 Rock. I know you love that. I don't know if it ages well, but I won't tell MJ about the problematic parts if you don't."

He falls asleep leaning against the bed or he just drifts off in his brain, but when Pepper comes in, it startles him awake. Pepper sits down next to Peter and hugs him from the side. She says, "He's going to be okay, I swear. That's what Cho said."

"I wish they were more sure," Peter says. 

"Me, too," she says. She looks pale and very very tired. She sighs. "You should go upstairs and get some sleep in a bed. Okay? I'll be here. Tony won't be alone."

He agrees because he's exhausted, not because he wants to leave her alone. 

Peter wakes up when his phone buzzes. He's supposed to be awake, getting ready for school. He doesn't think he can actually even remember how to count to three in German. That's hyperbole, he counts to twenty in German and then Spanish as he gets out of bed and looks for clean clothes. There's been a lot of 'you're fifteen, you should be able to put away your clothes and put the dirty ones in the laundry basket' talk lately at his dad's place. 

Peter looks again at his phone and he has a text from May that she called him in sick to school. He calls her just to hear her be reassuring and tell him not to worry. He says, "You've very important to me. Do I tell you that enough?"

"You probably tell me that more than you tell Tony," she says, and he can tell just from her voice that she's smiling. 

It's a whole week before Tony wakes up. Peter and Pepper sit with him and sometimes Rhodey and Happy. Peter has the impression that Pepper and Rhodey are keeping track of what's happening around the world, but he doesn't really care. 

It's Peter and Pepper in the room when Tony actually opens his eyes and is completely conscious for at least a minute or two. He smiles at the two of them and says, "Good. I like you two."

He's really in and out of consciousness for the next week. 

MJ and Ned show up with his homework, even though Peter's already got most of it from his teachers. MJ flops into her usual chair in the living room. She says, "Why do you even go to school? We couldn't get your homework for your math classes because that's not even a college level course, it's what, masters level? Are you taking post-graduate math, Peter?"

Peter shrugs. "Just math, though."

"Right," Ned says, fiddling with the remote to turn on the TV. "And your biology is only a college course at Columbia, so that's nothing."

MJ says, "And you speak five languages --"

"And Ned can program like my dad and you're, you know, really smart, too," Peter says, gesturing at MJ. 

"Yeah, thanks," MJ says. "You could literally get into any college you wanted right now and do fine."

"Dad says it sucks to be in college when you're fifteen," Peter says. He sits down next to Ned on the couch.

"It's not like I want you to quit decathlon," MJ says. "Your dad's going to be okay, though, right?"

"Yeah," Peter says. He leans into Ned. "He's sort of woken up. They put him in this coma and now he's recovering."

"That's good," Ned says, as he leans against Peter. Best friends, that's how it works. 

"Thanks for coming over," Peter says, looking over at MJ. MJ sort of smiles at him. 

"This very expensive chair is very comfortable which I appreciate," MJ says, patting the arms of the chair. 

May comes by in the morning and after she hangs out with Pepper for an hour, she pulls Peter away from the hospital room and Tony. "We're just gonna take a walk," she says. 

Peter says, "I feel like if I go back to school, I would just be worrying that something was happening here, not like I can help, but I know whenever I'm sick, Dad is there and it helps, you know?"

"Next week, though," May says. "He really is going to be fine."

Peter nods. "What, like, what if something did happen. I mean, to Dad?" He chews his lips and looks out the window. 

May says, "We have plans for that, of course. Yeah, strangely enough, we've made a lot of plans if something happens to Tony Stark, known for keeping himself safe. If anything happens to Tony, you get a lot of money. Not all of it, but a majority of it."

"I don't care about that," Peter says.

"And Pepper and Rhodey are the executors until you're twenty five. As to custody and where you live, we let you decide," May says.

"I pick?"

"When we last revisited this, you were already fourteen. It seems like you can make your own decision," May says. She pats his shoulder. "Like if you want to move or whatever."

"I'd like to see Pepper, I mean, she'd be pretty lonely," Peter says.

May just smiles at him. Then she says, "We probably don't need to worry about that right now."

"I know," Peter says. 

He's been pointedly ignoring Cap for two weeks now. It feels kinda worth it. If he dares to come visit Tony, Peter's not there when it happens. Maybe Pepper is, she's always more of an adult than Peter. 

Tony's awake more and longer than he has been. He says to Peter, "Go back to school."

"Next week," Peter says. "I can't miss too many decathlon practices. You've met MJ."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony says. "How's the actual schoolwork?"

"All done," Peter says. "You wanna hear about it? How's your conversational Urdu?"

"Not great," Tony says. His eyes are starting to close. "Hey, stop being mean to Steve."

"I'm not being mean to him," Peter says.

Tony limply pats Peter's hand. "You're adorable. Look, the whole story." He pauses. "The whole story is that there was a super soldier released and whathisface triggered the Buckster and we had, me and Cap and the Cat Prince, we killed the one soldier. T'Challa left to make sure the actual bad guy got caught." He pauses again. "We thought we had him subdued, we didn't."

"Bucky did all this to you," Peter says.

"Brainwashed Bucky," Tony says. "Cap was still worried I might kill him, that I just might. Which is what actual bad guy wanted. He had rigged." Tony pauses again. "Bad man had rigged up this neverending loop of Bucky, brainwashed Bucky killing. Murdering my parents. So, son, all those times I told you Granddad was a drunk who killed my mom, I was wrong. He was a drunk. But he didn't kill my mom."

"Dad, you can rest," Peter says. He rubs his dad's hand. "I don't need to know all this."

"Yes, you do. Anyway, Steve held me back, Bucky got in a few licks, Steve took care of it. I'm fine. I'll be fine," Tony says. "Shit happens. Only shithead in this scenario is the one bad guy."

Tony exhales. "Or we're all shitheads of varying degrees."

"You should have let me come," Peter says. 

"Nope," Tony says. "I'm not, I know I can only hold you off for so long, but right now, you're fifteen. Let's see how you develop."

"If I get taller?" Peter really grins. "If I get taller. Then I can do things like go on missions and stop you from getting killed."

"Ha, good luck, kid. Your mom was shorter than me," Tony says. "But I mean more experienced."

"Okay," Peter says. "Now rest, okay?"

He goes back to school. He makes all his decathlon practices. He actually saves a bunch of people as Spider-man. 

Tony gets better very slowly. Then six weeks after Siberia, King T'Challa and Shuri come breezing in, Shuri absolutely monopolizing Dr. Cho and after a few days, Tony is getting way better very quickly. MJ and Ned come over, and the three of them sit at the kitchen counter watching Shuri buzz around and talk to FRIDAY. Then she turns to them and says, "Are you just stalking me?"

"Watching with admiration," MJ says. 

"Yeah," Ned says. Peter nods. 

"Okay," she says. Then she goes back to work. 

He's staying with May since they've resumed normal custody arrangements but now Tony's well enough to be getting out of the medbay and inviting people over for dinner. Peter strongly suspects Steve will be there. Good old Steve. But now he knows what happened and he is trying to be forgiving. 

May says, "Be nice. You're going to be nice?"

"Of course, May," Peter says. 

"He didn't do anything wrong," May says. "Right?"

"Right, he was concerned about his friend, his best friend, and not so much about Tony who was watching video of his parents being killed on repeat," Peter says.

"He was still concerned about Tony," May says. "You've known Steve forever, he's a good man."

"Got it, got it," Peter says. 

He is very polite to Steve and does his best. But he's also thinking about getting taller and/or more experienced so he can go hang with his dad next vital emergency.


End file.
